If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

The following proposal was in an opinion piece in the NY Times. The author, Anne-Marie Slaughter, is described as "a professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, was director of policy planning at the State Department from 2009 to 2011," i.e., somebody who ought to know better than this:

FOREIGN military intervention in Syria offers the best hope for curtailing a long, bloody and destabilizing civil war. The mantra of those opposed to intervention is “Syria is not Libya.” In fact, Syria is far more strategically located than Libya, and a lengthy civil war there would be much more dangerous to our interests. America has a major stake in helping Syria’s neighbors stop the killing.

Simply arming the opposition, in many ways the easiest option, would bring about exactly the scenario the world should fear most: a proxy war that would spill into Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan and fracture Syria along sectarian lines. It could also allow Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to gain a foothold in Syria and perhaps gain access to chemical and biological weapons.

There is an alternative. The Friends of Syria, some 70 countries scheduled to meet in Tunis today, should establish “no-kill zones” now to protect all Syrians regardless of creed, ethnicity or political allegiance. The Free Syrian Army, a growing force of defectors from the government’s army, would set up these no-kill zones near the Turkish, Lebanese and Jordanian borders. Each zone should be established as close to the border as possible to allow the creation of short humanitarian corridors for the Red Cross and other groups to bring food, water and medicine in and take wounded patients out. The zones would be managed by already active civilian committees.

Establishing these zones would require nations like Turkey, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Jordan to arm the opposition soldiers with anti-tank, countersniper and portable antiaircraft weapons. Special forces from countries like Qatar, Turkey and possibly Britain and France could offer tactical and strategic advice to the Free Syrian Army forces. Sending them in is logistically and politically feasible; some may be there already.

Crucially, these special forces would control the flow of intelligence regarding the government’s troop movements and lines of communication to allow opposition troops to cordon off population centers and rid them of snipers. Once Syrian government forces were killed, captured or allowed to defect without reprisal, attention would turn to defending and expanding the no-kill zones.

The stupidity of this is breathtaking. She opens with a denunciation of proxy wars, then presumes to spell out exactly the wrong way to fight one as her solution. "No-Kill" zones are safe havens for insurgents, and legitimate targets in wartime. Let us assume that the Sunni states that she invites to carve out safe havens for insurgents actually take her up on her suggestion. If so, then Syria would now be in a state of war with Turkey, Saudia Arabia, Jordan and Qatar. Protecting a faction in a civil war within the sovereign territory of that nation constitutes an act of war. Iran would not sit idly by while Sunni Arabs attack their ally, and they would respond with their own troops. Since Syria is separated from Iran by Iraq, Iran would need to move large formations of troops through Iraq in order to support Assad. They would also have to fight their way through the Suez Canal to land troops on the Syrian Mediterranean ports. Hezbollah would support Syria, while Hamas could go either way, but the odds are the the war will soon engulf every Muslim state in the region. Eventually, the side that wins would consolidate its victory, declare itself the supreme Islamic authority in the world and begin marshalling its forces for the next stage of the grand jihad.

The author of this piece doesn't understand that the best outcome for the world would be if both factions in Syria, the Alawite dictatorship and the Muslim Brotherhood-backed insurgents, lose. There are no white hats in Syria, there aren't even grey hats, just variations on black hats. Our goal ought to be to contain the war, but let it go on as long as possible, while carefully screening refugees in order to find potential intel assets that we can recruit and send back into the Middle East.

I would submit that you cannot halt the butchery in any Arab/Muslim Middle Eastern country. The only thing you can do is change who it is that's doing the butchering.

"The efforts of the government alone will never be enough. In the end the people must choose and the people must help themselves" ~ JFK; from his famous inauguration speech (What Democrats sounded like before today's neo-Liberals hijacked that party)

I would submit that you cannot halt the butchery in any Arab/Muslim Middle Eastern country. The only thing you can do is change who it is that's doing the butchering.

That's a great insight.

Originally Posted by Dan D. Doty

Another Moonbat wants us ( and the International Community) to get involved in another civil war, so they ( said Moonbats) can feel all good.

What a load horse sh*t.

With this stupid safety zone plan even more people would get killed then what's happening now. And worse, they'll be demanding that we shoot the bad guys only in the hand

plus ( this is a big plus) we have the Moonbat factor.

as soon as the first shot is fired, the Moonbats would turn on us like they did every time before: I don't want that to happen yet again.

Exactly. If, when the moonbats demanded that we save Darfur (which, BTW, went unsaved, but you no longer hear anything about it), I asked one of them how they expected us to do it, and gradually led her to the obvious conclusion, that it would require US troops on the ground. When she conceded that point, I then asked her to explain what would keep her pals from protesting our involvement, and how long it would take for the "Save Darfur" bumper stickers to be replaced with "US out of Darfur" bumper stickers. She didn't have an answer.

it's about "reinventing" war and making nice-nice with everyone...typical idiotic logic

"Should I keep back my opinions at such a time, through fear of giving offense, I should consider myself as guilty of treason towards my country, and of an act of disloyalty toward the Majesty of Heaven, which I revere above all earthly kings..." Patrick Henry

Another Moonbat wants us ( and the International Community) to get involved in another civil war, so they ( said Moonbats) can feel all good.

What a load horse sh*t.

With this stupid safety zone plan even more people would get killed then what's happening now. And worse, they'll be demanding that we shoot the bad guys only in the hand

plus ( this is a big plus) we have the Moonbat factor.

as soon as the first shot is fired, the Moonbats would turn on us like they did every time before: I don't want that to happen yet again.

First,
* I agree that killing cannot be stopped in a Moose-Limb country. They like what they do and it is inbred and fostered into their cultural identity.

Second,
* These "zones" have worked so well in the past. Look at the examples;
The forced country that gave us the Bosnia spectacular. The N/S Korean paradise, the E/W German chioce, and many other wonderful manifestations including the Gaza Strip vacation destination. The actual examples are numerous and more of the same courtesy of that wonderful vacation packaging entity aka, the U.N.

We have as much chance of this working as we have of "winning the war on poverty and drugs" or the DOEnergy weening the US off foriegn oil dependency or the perrenial contender, the DOEducation actually adding value to education.

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.C. S. LewisDo not ever say that the desire to "do good" by force is a good motive. Neither power-lust nor stupidity are good motives. (Are you listening Barry)?:mad:Ayn Rand